‘It’s terrible for you’ — Volkanovski warns Pimblett about gaining weight in between fights

Paddy Pimblett has been very vocal and has become famous for several reasons, one of which is his love of junk food and putting on significant weight in between his fights. The British star is currently competing in the lightweight division of UFC and has rapidly risen to glory with three finishes since arriving in the promotion in September 2021. Before joining the UFC, Paddy Pimblett used to be a featherweight champion at the Cage Warrior.

Now that he has moved up to lightweight, he jokes about overeating junk food and ballooning up to 200 pounds while not training. This might be funny from a fan’s perspective, but it’s no laughingstock to Volkanovski, who takes his weight very seriously as the UFC featherweight champion.

Alexander Volkanovski went down memory lane and admitted that he used to walk around at 190 pounds in between fights and even weighed as much as 214 pounds on the rugby pitch. He feels more qualified to give Paddy Pimblett some advice on his current weight issues as he faced a hard time too in losing weight ahead of fights.

In an interview with The All-Star’s John Hyon Ko, Volkanovski revealed that the huge weight cut had ill effects on his body at the start of his career and he used to be careless in taking precautions despite being a professional athlete.

"I know the science. I don't just know that, but I used to do that. Back in the days when people would see me win the PXC world title, featherweight. I'll go back to Thailand, not even two weeks later and people are looking at me like 'How do you look like that?' It doesn't make sense..."

“I used to weigh in at 65.8 [kilograms], 145 [pounds], and within the week ... so next weekend, 86 kilograms. That’s over 185 [pounds], and you used to see that, well over — that’s almost 190. I used to go from 145 to 190 [pounds] in one week. It’s not healthy. It’s terrible for you. It blows my mind how his head just balloons like that. It’s quite funny.”

Paddy Pimblett has been extremely criticized regarding his weight problems. Ahead of his most recent fight at UFC London in July, The Liverpool star burst out in front of the spectators at the weigh-ins after making the weights.

“For every one that tried to fat shame me and said I’d miss weight or f****** pull out, kiss my ass,” Pimblett said.

UFC champion Volkanovski suggested that maybe some of the comments aimed at Pimblett were constructive.

“Look, honestly, I hear about people fat shaming him and all that type of stuff, yeah, some people would be,” Volkanovski said. “But I think there’s a lot of people that probably care for his health as well because it ain’t healthy. I know because I’ve been in the same position.”

Dana White has revealed that Paddy Pimblett weight putting habit has stopped him from earning short-notice fights booking. He explained that it is a tough task for him to appear in a such short time and he needs adequate time intervals to be ready for the fight. Paddy Pimblett has shown his concerns regarding the mental health issue at UFC London post-fight interview but he should be taking notes from the featherweight champion as he has discouraged such weight-gaining habit.